The Culling of Man: A litrpg adventure (Peril's Prodigy Book 1) by Craig Kobayashi (ereader android TXT) 📕

Parents quickly herded their children into the building. They passed through the entrance hallway, through a second set of glass doors, and into the main hall of the converted school building. Garath, Athios, and Warrion formed up with the nine other fighters just outside the doors.

The crackling orbs started vibrating wildly and they were now almost the size of an adult human. Then, as one, each of the countless orbs across the planet collapsed in on themselves with an audible pop - the resulting boom like cannon fire in a cemetery. In place of each orb, a shimmering light appeared in a roughly humanoid form as they materialized and started to take shape.

Just like that, the first monsters of The Culling had arrived. When the materializing lights solidified, Garath couldn't help smiling despite the fear threatening to overtake his senses. They were essentially just walking skeletons, each holding one of a myriad of rusted, metallic weapons. Garath wondered briefly if tetanus would count as a poison, but he guessed it didn’t really matter. The Necrologist focused on the skeleton that had taken form directly in front of him and his new Inspect ability triggered automatically.

Reanimated Bones

Undead

Health: 10/10

Level: 1

Station: Infantry

Mana: 0/0

Description: The bones of humans passed have been reanimated to cull the ranks of the living. Though mindless, Reanimated Bones are aggressive and will attack anything that moves - except other Undead creatures.

Average Respawn Time: 10 minutes

Level Range: 1-2

‘A good ol' skelly mob to kick this party off. Classic,’Garath thought. The Necrologist made a quick mental note concerning the verbiage 'average respawn time' - indicating that respawn times may vary.

It didn't take long for the horde of undead to spring into action. Almost as one, every skeleton within the fenced area raised their respective weapons and charged to attack.

Athios' hand shot out in front of her the second the withered warriors had solidified, sending a reflective silver disk, one-meter in diameter, to land beneath the feet of the skeleton closest to the doors. The Reanimated Bones sank into the disk, disappearing from view completely.  Athios finished her spell by sending a second disk from her outstretched hand. The skeleton emerged from the second disk five-meters away, and thirty-meters in the air. The level one undead creature plummeted from the sky, its weapon still raised to attack. Apparently the landing inflicted more than ten points of damage because, when it hit the ground, the undead creature shattered across the pavement. Each of its many parts flashed neon like an explosion in Tron before evaporating out of existence.

Garath channeled his Mana into the one-second cast time of Death Bolt. The black energy vibrated between his outstretched hands as he focused on the nameplate of an approaching skeleton, and noticed a red circle that appeared below its feet. The Necrologist wondered if the targeting assistance mentioned in his staff's description was in play as he released his cast and the bolt shot forward. Whatever it was, Garath wasn't complaining. His aim had been off, a few feet to the right of his target, but the pulsing black energy bent to correct course and struck the skeleton square in the chest. The impact from his spell knocked the skeleton back a few feet and the red health-bar displayed above its head dropped by a third. The level one Death Magic spell cost under 10% of his available Mana, so the Necrologist cast a second, and then a third Death Bolt at his foe in quick succession. With the last, the skeleton's health bar was emptied completely and, much like the one Athios had given a free skydiving lesson (sans parachute), Garath's target flashed into neon particles and evaporated into the air.

Another of the rickety skeletons charged the Necrologist. Garath was shocked and caught off guard by the speed of the level one trash mob - the animated corpse charging him was nothing like the clumsy, bumbling, bag of bones one would expect from a low level creature in a game. Instead, it closed the few feet between them in an instant, already bringing the dangerous end of its rusted axe down at his head. Before he could react, a silver disk appeared vertically between himself and the charging skeleton. The disk vanished along with the axe-wielding undead. Less than a second later, another disk phased into view and, once again, the monster fell to its final death.

“Thanks!” Garath shouted as another Death Bolt began to form between his hand and staff. He locked onto another target and released, this time knocking half of its Health away with a single shot.

In his peripherals, Garath saw the rest of the fighters in the party dealing death as well. Warrion had one small dagger in each hand and was dancing through the chaos, shoving his daggers into anything lacking epidermis - only damaging some and landing a final blow on others. An enormously swollen gym-rat-looking fella, with the designation 'Fergus' displayed on his nameplate, swung his long two-handed mace in wide sweeps, each of his attacks inflicting massive damage to the undead horde closing in on the Raid Group. Each of his powerful swings sent two or three of them flying back and some of them even broke into several pieces - providing some much needed space for the group to spread out and cover the doors. Garath looked down at the useless stick he had received, then at Warrion's daggers and Fergus’ badass mace, wondering again if he had chosen his Class poorly. There was nothing for it though. Cursing every game's lack of the coveted 'probably' button, the Necrologist fought on - firing off Death Bolts like a meth addict dishing out sandwiches at Subway at 3AM.

Garath's volley of Death energy halted suddenly when he heard a very human cry of pain to his right and turned to look. The mace-wielding gym-rat had apparently bitten off more than he could chew and was bleeding from multiple wounds all over his too-muscular form.